Originally written by Amy Chused

[Note: I took a nasty cold home with me from Arisia. Please blame
any typoes, accidental insults or logical fallacies to report-producing with a cold-clogged brain. --Amy]

What you did?
It wasn't just me; it was me and Jasra and LA and Jan pre-con, and lots more people at con, but what we did was:

Pre-con: Enter the registrations for everyone with an earned comp from last year. Process all the year-ahead and on-line registrations for this year. Send helpful e-mail to folks having trouble using paypal to purchase registrations. Answer questions from folks about whether or not they were registered. Work with Dealer's Liaison to get all the dealer registrations processed. Work with events, programming, gaming, fast track, babysitting, massage den, ops, etc (all the various divisions) to do our best to get everyone's staff comped ahead of time, using both personal e-mail and some spreadsheets shared via Google Docs. Arrange a rough staffing schedule for registration ahead of time, again using Google Docs.

At-con: Staff the registration desk on Thursday for a test-setup and to print staff badges, and then on Friday through Monday for our registrants. Print many many badges. Sell year-ahead memberships. Track how close we were to the various caps as the cap was changed, and make sure that the conchair and the E-board were aware as we approached each cap.

What went right?

1. Registration in general – 2369 registered, 2280 badged, and the lines never got terribly long.
2. Using the rope and stanchion to make a line area, and having the for pay folks in the far corner, so that the pre-reg folks could get through quickly. (Although after the Saturday evening rejiggering of the line for the Masquerade, it was never returned to the formerly helpful configuration, and was more confusing than helpful for the last two days.)
3. Dave's software (congo, coconut) rocks!
4. The policy that anyone who should have been comped but wasn't needed a note from their dept/division head (or anyone senior, including Tem) and could get comped quickly – this was not so much hassle that folks didn't get comped as needed, but it allowed us to track how many last minute comps there were (Many – Jasra has all the
   notes).
5. Creating the book of useful information to hold the schedule, contact information, comp lists and other such useful registration information turned out to be, in fact, useful.
6. Asking for volunteers to loan us space heaters. They weren't enough, but they did help. Also, the drape that we borrowed from Tech for the Monday load out – it helped decrease the gusts of sharp cold air, although it didn't do anything to improve the ambient cold temperature.
7. Having the gmail reg@arisia.org archives available at the registration desk. There were some people whose registrations were missed in the on-line processing, but they were easily found in the archives and fixed.
8. The $10 off Sunday coupon for people who couldn't get in Saturday. To my knowledge, only one person used it, but it was a nice touch.
9. Knowledgeable, hardworking volunteers, both experienced and new, that pitched in and helped reg run smoothly.

What went wrong? and What should be done differently next year?

1. The registration area was FREEZING. The registering members complained about it, but the registration staff really suffered. Many of us have gotten sick as well. I wore my pretty Arisia staff T-shirt, and then put a long sleeve shirt on that and then put a sweater on top of that and then a winter coat on top of that. Some of my staff had pretty hall costumes that needed serious compromising to prevent them from freezing.

   Recommended Solution: I would need to look again to see if it would be possible to move registration into the hallway between the garage and the lobby. Unfortunately, I suspect that space is just too narrow. Failing that, we need to give some serious thought to heating the registration area. It was uncomfortable on Friday and Saturday, when the outside temperatures were relatively warm, but on Sunday and Monday, staffing registration was painfully cold. Perhaps the convention or the hotel could hire the kind of ambient heaters that restaurants hang over doors?

2. We blew the fuse when we had two space heaters on the same circuit.

   Recommended solution A(preferred): Move registration so that we don't freeze next year.
   Recommended solution B: No more than one space heater per circuit

3. Dealer's registrations were challenging at best. The information from dealers liaison was not specific as to how many memberships had been bought at what price for what dealerships and what individual names.

   Recommended solution: Add an optional Company Name field, plus/minus a "dealers" check box to the on-line registration form and ask all dealers to purchase their memberships through the on-line registration form. This will also ensure that the prices dealers purchased their memberships at will be recorded automatically.

4. Many people who believed that they should have been comped weren't comped until the day of the convention.

   Recommended solution: This is a multi-part problem. Some of these folks probably didn't turn in their time sheets. Some of their time sheets may have gotten lost. Some of the time sheets that didn't get lost probably weren't transcribed into the registration system properly, and some of the double checking that needed to happen didn't. We need to be precise about our time sheet tracking this year, but I would recommend one further step: Pre-con, that we publish an periodically updated alphabetical by last name (+/- sorted by comp type) list of everyone that is in the registration system as comped, and ask department and division heads to check their expected people against that list so that, ideally, we can fix missing comps pre-con.

5. There was no clear registration type for the Student Art Contest finalists and their parents. Students were given Art Show Comps and their parents/relatives were given single day Event comps, but this was not clearly defined ahead of time.

   Recommended solution: Define a type for Art Show Student Finalists and Art Show Relatives or declare that they are properly comped under either events or art show.

6. There is no mechanism in the registration system to show people purchasing 2 one-day passes. Some people wanted to purchase Sunday/Monday. They were given full weekend passes with the price changed to 40, but that throws off our full price full weekend pass count.

   Recommended solution: Create a Sunday/Monday membership type.

7. Many complaints pre-con about being unable to purchase single day memberships ahead of time, and thus being unable to plan with confidence.

   Recommended solution: After the prices reach the at-the-door price, it would be reasonable to sell non-cap-applicable (ie, Friday/Sunday/Monday) single day badges on-line.

8. One of our volunteers was excellent at cleaning things up so that they couldn't be found the following morning, and at consolidating boxes so that items from multiple sources were in the same storage unit.

   Recommended solution: Either ask her not to help clean again, or have a manager watcher her closely.

9. Some people didn't reach the desk with IDs out, and some students neglected to bring their student IDs to the con with them.

   Recommended solution: Better signage next year.

10. Having an insomniac night-owl (me) be the person in charge of opening registration every morning did not harm registration, but was rather hard on the insomniac night-owl.

Recommended Solution: Next year, we plan to divvy up the responsibilities so that we don't have the same person opening all 4 days.

11. A number of events folks whose badges were pre-printed stopped by reg to get their badges. A number of events folks whose badges were not pre-printed picked up their event packets and then back-tracked to get their badges.

    Recommended Solution: Since the registration lines weren't that long, we might consider having all the events badges be printed on demand and/or allow the event coordinator to get all their people's badges printed when the event coordinator checks in. Alternatively, we need to post a sign about which events badges were pre-printed and which were not.

12. A number of panelists were shocked to find that they didn't have 3 panels and that they weren't pre-registered. They would get sent to program nexus to try to negotiate a third panel, and then sent back to registration with a note from programming saying "comp 'em". Or they'd just pay and be shocked.

    Recommended Solution: Better programming <-> panelist communication pre con.

What sort of schedule/timeline did you use?
Pre-con, we processed registrations as they came in. We set deadlines for comp-requests (by January 1 for snark-free comps, by January 8th for snark-lite comps), but received several last minute comp requests regardless. At con, we manned registration on Thursday from about 5 to about 7 or 8, and then on Friday through Monday in accordance with our published schedule.

Are the any changes you'd make to the schedule for next year?
I'd like to make the comps deadlines a bit tighter, since having a lot of last minute comps makes it very difficult for us to accurately anticipate the caps.

Vendors you used?
Stonekeep Consulting (aka Dave Belfer-Shevett & co) provided the hardware, software and pre-illustrated badges. (Thanks for the gorgeous artwork Mouse!)

Staples provided paper, pens, notepads, notebook, etc.
Trader Joes provided registration staff snacks.

Experiments to try next year?
HEAT!!!!!

Having several different people share responsibility for opening and closing registration.

Posting a list of comped people to the staff web site and asking folks to make sure that everyone they expect to be comped is comped, to see if that will give us fewer last minute comps.

Any comments about the rest of the con (other divisions, hotel, ...)?

• Hotel liaison and the hotel itself were very helpful when we needed our water and when we blew a fuse.
• Tech was fantastic about lending us a heavy drape to cut the drafts. Next year we'll ask earlier.
• Sign shop was very responsive about fixing missing signs, after a slow start that involved missing signs *wry grin*.
• Program Nexus was great about letting us store our stuff in their room.
• Ops was great about making sure we had a radio (and finding ours when we lost it), and getting us the apology letter when we capped on Saturday, and coping with after hours reg questions and getting us the Year-Ahead form, even if it was a pain to rip the non-perforated receipt off that form.